2017 Total Eclipse Viewing – Beauty and the Beast

2017 Total Eclipse Viewing – The Beauty

A couple weekends ago my family traveled down to our hunting property. We did a little habitat work (multiple other posts coming on that) and then stayed to watch the eclipse on Monday. We were extremely excited going in to the trip. Seeing a full solar eclipse is something that is a once in a lifetime type experience. One that we will get to experience again in 7 years!

As the sun was starting to get blocked, the excitement around camp was elevated. We took the above photo roughly 10 minutes before the sun could not be seen. The 2 minutes and 40 seconds that we got to see the sun completely blocked by the moon was awesome. A sight that I know I will never forget. Hopefully it’s something that my girls will never forget either. I took some photos, but I was definitely not prepared enough. The best camera I had with me was my phone, which really wasn’t able to get anything other than the typical glare.

The Ride Home – The Beast

What can I say that wasn’t said all over the news. It was horrible. Within 2 minutes of the sun starting to show itself again, we were packing up the truck. Everything had already been gathered so it only took me about 5 minutes. I wish I could say that I’m joking when I say that the highway was already bumper to bumper from the moment we entered the on ramp. The first 20 miles of highway took us 3 hours. Things just kept getting worse from there.

My truck currently has no air conditioning and it was 103 degrees outside. If you add to that two hot panting dogs and you start to end up with a hellish road trip home. All in all, the trip took us 13 hours of driving. That’s more that double the normal time at 5 1/2. There will definitely be a different approach to the one coming in 2024.